


three thousand, one hundred and ninety-one

by devviepuu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Love and a Bit with a Dog, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: It was mutual.First love wasn’t meant to last forever, they said.He had to leave.  She had to stay.“I’m working my way back to you, babe,” she said.“Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you,” he promised.It was only meant to be for a year.But all of these years later, they were still trapped 3191 miles apart.(originally posted in parts for the Writers Month 2020 challenge, now edited/expanded)
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	three thousand, one hundred and ninety-one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katie_Dub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katie_Dub/gifts).



> a few things originally inspired this story: the shutdown orders in march.   
>  the pilot episode of ally mcbeal. a book i keep on my shelf of two bloggers--one in portland, ME and one in portland, OR--who started a project of sending each other photos every morning of their breakfasts.
> 
> this story has background references to quarantine and shutdown but does not in any other way discuss those things.

It’s 3:56 in the morning on Tuesday when the phone rings.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

He doesn’t have to say it. Doesn’t have to say anything, really; because she recognizes his breathing, the comforting rhythm of his inhalations and exhalations, from too many nights too many years ago for this to still feel expected.

“Who is this?” is what she says.

“Swan--”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“You’re the one who left your ringer on.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to lie. Her mother is elderly. Her sister-in-law is pregnant. Her brother works the night shift. All of these things are true but they are not the truth.

Because the truth is that it never occurred to her to turn the ringer off, not once in all of those years.

What if she missed his call?

“Why are you calling me?” is what she says.

“At four in the morning?”

“At all.”

“You know it’s only one here.”

“Yes,” she says. “I know how time zones work.”

She knows he knows; knows how he used to phone her at the most ridiculous hours, bored and drunk and tired and on one memorable occasion while being detained by a police officer. Three time zones are nothing when you’re twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, but then that good job offer turns into a great career and adulting comes up on you pretty fast. Broke and budgeting and 3,000 miles apart and--it’s fine.

It’s fine.

“Why are you calling me?” She says it again, in a quieter voice. Gentler, softer, warmer.

Curious but not eager.

“I just--”

“Killian--”

“I just needed to hear your voice.”

Sometimes, when they were apart, he used to call her just to have the open phone line. So he could listen to her breathe.

“And now that you have?”

“Don’t hang up.”

“Four in the morning, Killian.”

“Do you have somewhere to be today?”

No. Not with the way things were--no. She had nowhere to be.

No one did.

“Please, Swan,” he says. “Don’t hang up.”

And maybe this is what they call inevitable.

“Okay,” she says.

“Go to sleep, love.”

“Killian?”

“Yeah?”

“Just tonight,” she says, and she means it. “Don’t call me like this again. I couldn’t handle it.”

Emma Swan re-arranges her pillow, pulls her blanket up to her chin, and turns on her side to face the phone.

Okay.

Maybe it’s not fine.

\--

He doesn’t call again. At first.

He finds another way.

(Did she ever doubt that he would?)

\--

**Thursday** _  
Killian Jones has sent you an image_  
[a bowl, a spoon, half a grapefruit; a french press full of coffee.]

The grapefruit makes her smile. “Staves off the scurvy, Swan,” he used to say as he handed her a cup of coffee. “Staves off my appetite,” she used to say.

**Friday  
** _Killian Jones has sent you an image_  
[a coffee mug on a pile of books: _The Count of Monte Cristo. The Martian Chronicles. The Tower Treasure._ ]

“How are you still reading the Hardy Boys? Did you steal this from a library?”

“It’s called a used book sale, Swan. Don’t mock a man’s comfort reads.”

**Saturday** _  
Killian Jones has sent you an image_  
[an empty paper cup with a tell-tale ring of coffee dregs; on the old trunk being used as a table, there is a small bowl of sea shells.]

Summer Saturday mornings meant Granny’s coffee to go and a walk on East End Beach. And Keats--always Keats.

_“Often ’tis in such gentle temper found, / That scarcely will the very smallest shell / Be moved for days from where it sometime fell, / When last the winds of heaven were unbound.”_

She closes her eyes and can hear his voice.

It feels like a very long time ago.

(Emma wonders when she will be able to go to the beach again.)

**Sunday  
** _Killian Jones has sent you an image_  
[coffee. milk. sugar.]

“You should really add some coffee to your sugar, love.”

“Don’t mock a girl’s needs, Jones.”

“How have you not rotted your teeth out?”

“How would you even know? You don’t drink coffee!”

\--oh. _Oh._

\--

**Emma [9.04 AM]  
** Is this you trying to bring me coffee?

 **Killian [9.07 AM]**  
Is it working?

 **Emma [9.13 AM]  
** Ask me tomorrow.

\--

It was mutual.

First love wasn’t meant to last forever, they said.

He had to leave. She had to stay.

“I’m working my way back to you, babe,” she said.

“Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you,” he promised.

It was only meant to be for a year.

But all of these years later, they were still trapped 3191 miles apart.

\--

 **Monday** _  
Killian Jones has sent you an image  
_ [two mugs. side-by-side.]

It’s early and the morning sunlight is warming the side of her face as Emma bites her lip. The mugs are strange and beautiful, hand-painted and mismatched on his wooden dining table.

(It’s even earlier there. That’s how time zones work.)

With a sigh, Emma holds up her own mug. It’s the one with bold lettering that says “Maybe today, Satan,” and--yeah. Maybe today. Her cat, Buttercup, takes it as an invitation and bumps her hand. The picture she sends back to him is a blur of cat and mug and coffee caught mid-spill.

**Emma [8.49 AM]**  
You owe me a refill, Jones.

 **Killian [8.51 AM]**  
As you wish.

The doorbell rings at 9:29 and it’s Ruby Lucas. She’s wearing a red beret that matches her lipstick that matches her nails and the red streaks in her hair. The mask dangling from her purse is red gingham. Safer-at-home be damned, Ruby Lucas is dressed to kill.

Emma had gotten up this morning and put on clean sweatpants and a t-shirt she hadn’t slept in.

“How very on-brand of you,” Emma says through the partially-open door, and Ruby laughs. It’s full-throated and knowing as she leaves her offerings on the mat.

“It’s not the same as Granny’s,” Ruby says.

“Granny would never do delivery,” Emma says.

“This was drive-through,” Ruby admits. “But it’s the thought that counts--and someone has clearly been thinking of you.”

“Good-bye, Ruby,” Emma says. Ruby mimes a “call me” gesture as the door slams shut.

The coffee is still hot.

The bear claw is delicious.

Emma looks at the phone. Picks it up, scrolls through to his number.

Puts it down again.

Buttercup _mew_ s.

“Not you, too,” Emma says with a sigh.

**Emma [10:02 AM]**  
Tomorrow. 9AM.

 **Killian [10.03 AM]  
** See you then.

**\--**

**Tuesday**

_Killian Jones would like to FaceTime_

Emma lets it ring. Just--she--her hair is up in a messy topknot and she’s wearing her _glasses_ , for fuck’s sake, and she had known he would phone on time to the minute and why is she like this?

Why?

(Because she didn’t want to let herself hope, says a voice in her head that sounds annoyingly like her sister-in-law)

With a sigh she swipes and accepts the call, propping the phone up against the napkin holder. It’s not like he’s never seen her dressed like this, and--

“‘Ello, Swan,” he says.

Emma says nothing. She’s speechless, and it’s fucking awkward as hell; it’s just that she expected--no, she had no idea what she expected, but it’s not this, this calm, pleasant, familiar-but-not-creepy greeting over the rim of yet another one of his gorgeous coffee mugs and hers today has a line drawing of a cat making a face that just says “I do what I want” and that’s when Buttercup decides to introduce herself.

“Hi,” Emma says and hopes it isn’t muffled by the cat butt currently occupying most of the 7-inch screen.

“Hi,” he repeats. He smiles and takes another sip. “Who’s your friend?”

“Buttercup,” Emma groans, shoving all ten pounds of fur and cat off of the table.

“Honored to meet you, Buttercup,” he says, and nothing else.

He’s wearing a black hoodie and a red t-shirt and his hair is a mess and he hasn’t shaved but if Emma has ever had doubts that the years had been kind to Killian Jones--and she hasn’t, she’s seen pictures--they are immediately dispelled because his eyes still crinkle when he smiles, the way he is smiling right now, like he knows a secret, and --yeah.

Yeah.

She smiles, finally. She has nothing to say and it’s--it’s fine. It should be awkward and unpleasant--and it was, but only for like a second, now it’s neither of those things, and if part of her is itching to look more closely at the background of his kitchen, at the framed prints and kitchenware and the glimpse of a bookshelf hovering over his right shoulder, she suppresses it, ignores the evidence of the life he is living, the life he _has been_ living. Without her.

In this moment, here and now, it’s just them.

It’s fine.

Killian sips his tea. Emma sips her coffee.

Finally she says, “It’s really nice to see you, Killian. You look--”

He smirks. “I know.”

“--like you haven’t slept in days,” she says with a grin.

He laughs. “It’s only 6 here.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I know how time zones work.”

**Friday**

Emma’s never seen the Pacific Ocean and Killian finds this unbelievable.

“Surely you’re kidding, Swan,” he says, hunching over his table to lean closer to the phone screen. She likes this view of him, the way his eyes look all earnest and interested and the sharpness of his jaw highlighted by the angle of the phone.

The wall behind him is bare and it’s kind of a relief. Three days of phone calls after a multi-year hiatus isn’t really a great strategy for the get-to-know-me crash course; she’s not ready for the apartment tour.

Emma’s not even sure she’s ready for _this_. She shrugs.

It’s an ocean, right? She has one, too, it’s just that she can see the sunrise instead of the sunset.

“That presupposes you’ve gotten up in time for the sunrise, love,” Killian says, and Emma surprises herself by laughing, because it’s true.

It’s also something that he knows better than--almost anyone, really, and he says it so easily and simply and in way that is strangely comforting, like it’s just a fact. That he knows.

Better than almost anyone.

“I guess you can, like, see the ocean from your window or whatever,” Emma says with a smile.

Killian’s eyebrow goes up in a way that _she_ knows. Better than almost anyone.

(It’s just--it’s three days and already it’s getting harder every day to hang up the phone. It’s three days and she’s already _hooked_.)

His hand brushes over the screen and suddenly she is looking out of his window at a view that definitely does not include an ocean. But--

“There’s water!” Emma says, protesting.

“That’s the _river_ ,” Killian says. “Have you never looked at a map? The ocean’s more than an hour’s drive even now that there’s no traffic or tourists.”

(She’s never been there, never been to see him _or_ the ocean.)

“I just always assumed--” Emma says, and then stops. The phone camera flips around again and she’s looking at him and his eyes and his eyebrow that is definitely not raised, his expression open and playful. “I just always assumed that you’d live by the water.”

God, she loves the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles and he looks at her like that; like he could look at her every minute of every day and never be tired of it, some mixture of surprise and awe coloring his features.

“It’s almost like you know me,” he says.

And she shouldn’t, just--this moment is so pure and so perfect but she can’t help herself as she feels her smile fade because she _doesn’t_ , not really, not anymore. They knew each other when they were kids, when they’d had dreams and aspirations and people they’d wanted to be. That’s why they’d split up, anyway--dreams and aspirations and things like _career opportunities_ and money and a desire to let go, to move on, to grow up. It’s just that neither of them had counted on growing _apart._

They’re strangers now, with so many years and so many miles between them.

(The sun rises over her ocean and sets over his. It’s a metaphor, she thinks, and not a good one.)

This is _ridiculous_.

She can’t do this.

He senses her shift in mood like he always does but lets her go when she makes her excuse to get off the call; when she disconnects Buttercup comes up against her, a gentle rub of her head against the hand that still holds the phone as Emma sighs, feeling herself deflate.

\--

 **Killian [11.32 PM]  
** Is it alright if I phone you? Right now?

\--

She’s curled up in bed with Buttercup as she considers the text.

She can tell him ‘no’. She can tell him and he’ll stop and he’ll respect her decision and she knows this because that’s what happened--before.

She doesn’t want to answer it, she decides.

Except.

What if it’s something bad? He promised he wouldn’t call her like this anymore. He always keeps his promises and--

\--

 **Killian [11.38 PM]  
** It’s nothing bad. I promise.

\--

It makes her smile even as she huffs a long sigh of displeasure.

Talking to Killian--it’s addictive. She doesn’t want to--can’t let herself--get used to this again.

(Emma wonders if he will be disappointed in who she is now, in the ways that she’s changed from that kid she used to be.

She wonders if she will be disappointed in him.)

This is exactly the kind of shit she needs to avoid.

\--

 **Killian [11.41 PM]  
** This is avoidance, Swan. Please answer me.

\--

Buttercup looks up at her and mews.

“Still?” Emma says.

Buttercup blinks slowly.

“Fine then,” Emma says.

\--

**Emma [11.46 PM]**

Ok

\--

_Killian Jones would like to FaceTime_ and when she swipes to accept she doesn’t see his face. Instead, she’s watching a sunset.

She’s watching a sunset over the ocean. Over the _Pacific Ocean_.

Killia had driven over an hour to show her the Pacific.

“‘O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired, / Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea’,” he quotes softly, the words blending into the crashing of the waves along the empty shoreline.

It’s at least a minute before she can say anything and she just blurts out the first thing that occurs to her, which is “Are you even allowed to be at the beach right now?”

She sees the phone move, as if he is shrugging.

“It’s not like we have a curfew or anything,” he says. “It’s just as you see, Swan. Quiet and empty. It’s just us.”

He’s barely finished speaking before a huge dog, mottled black and white with markings across its face, comes lumbering up into the frame and goes straight for Killian with the kind of delighted adoration that only a dog can convey.

“Who’s your friend?” Emma says. “Or--is he yours? I didn’t know you had a dog.”

The camera flips around and she can see his face. It’s unfair the way his eyes still seem to twinkle in the vanishing sunlight, and he’s doing that thing with his eyebrows, the one where he’s watching her and being patient while he waits for her to catch up.

“You never asked,” he says. “He’s mine. His name is--”

But Emma _knows_.

(It’s almost like she knows _him_.)

“Westley,” Emma says, and smiles. “Of course it is.”

“Of course it is,” he agrees.

They listen to the waves for another minute before he takes a deep breath and says, “I’m scared, too. I’m worried I’m going to disappoint you. For instance, did you know that I almost got married?”

“Wait, what?” Emma fumbles the phone as she sits up in her bed. “What happened?”

“She went back to her husband,” Killian says.

Emma is silent. There is literally nothing to say to that.

Or maybe there’s too much.

“Do you want to--”

“No,” Killian says. “I don’t. But you deserve to know.”

Emma bites her lip and looks away.

“See?” Killian’s eyebrow is up again, but his face looks different; there’s an entire language just in the shape of his eyebrows and the angle of his mouth and the twitch of his jaw. “I never want to let you down, Emma. But it’s going to happen. That’s life.”

He’s quiet again.

But in that moment, she’s full of the rush that is him and she knows that she wants to know him, for real, here and now--the Killian Jones who moved away and made a life and got a dog and had his heart broken. Emma wants him to know her, too--older, wiser, with triumphs and regrets and a cat.

“Hey,” she says. “Whatever you did--whatever _I_ did, I don’t want it to change anything between us right now. If we can--” Emma pauses to catch her breath. “I want to take this slowly, Killian, but I’m going to choose to see the best in you.”

The sun has set fully, his face a mixture of blue and purple shadows.

But his smile--it still shines.

“And I in you,” he says.

**\--**

But it’s not that simple.

Nothing ever is, and this--it comes out of nowhere and Emma’s not ready for it.

(Or maybe she’s been waiting for it all along.)

They’re talking about a goddamn _rabbit_.

Its name is Leo and it belongs to Emma’s brother David and her sister-in-law Mary Margaret because of course Mary Margaret is the type to take the class rabbit home during the school shutdowns. She’s got a _thing_ for animals and they love her right back and it’s cute.

Really, it is.

Except now Emma’s stuck with the damn thing for a few days and Buttercup is not pleased with this development. She’s laughing about it, describing the Wild Kingdom antics in her apartment to Killian like it’s easy (it _is_ easy) because this is a thing they do now--they talk about their days, they check in.

A lot.

It’s nice.

She tells him about her work and he tells her about his and they sit and have coffee together in the afternoon--he has tea, but they chat to each other with the FaceTime cameras on while he boils the water his electric kettle because “it gets the temperature perfect, Swan, you don’t want to burn the tea” and Emma pops a K-cup in the machine and waits for the sweet, life-giving elixir to drip into her mug.

They avoid all of the stuff that’s painful, the stuff that left scars, but it’s there, waiting, and then--

She’s laughing about Leo the Rabbit when he takes a sip and smiles and says, “Ah, yes, Dave mentioned.”

And Emma--stops.

“Dave?” she asks stupidly. “My brother David? You talked to--”

“My best friend of the past fifteen years?” Killian asks. “Aye, Swan, I talk to him frequently.”

And they’re not doing this, not now, that’s not _slow_ , so she doesn’t let herself see the warning signs when he puts his mug down, she just says, “What did he say? David, I mean?”

And she ignores the way he looks confused when he says, :”About Leo?”

“About me,” Emma says. “Did you tell him about--”

“Is it a secret?” He grabs the mug again but sloshes some of the tea and Emma can see him, the way his fingers clench and the muscle in his jaw is tight. He’s angry now and she can’t _not_ see it.

“No,” Emma says, but she says it too quickly and she knows he can see that she’s nervous.

“But you didn’t tell him.”

(She hasn’t told _anyone_.)

(This is _private_. She can’t--she can’t take the chance that she’s wrong.)

“No,” Emma says. “What was there to tell?”

“Dunno,” he says, his affect flat and dull. “I told him how thrilled I was that we had taken this chance to reconnect, how it was something to look forward to when everything is literally shit. I told him how much I’d missed you and how much I love getting to see you everyday and hear about your ridiculous cat and listen to you laugh and show you the sunset and get to _know_ you again. But you’re right.” He picks up the mug and holds it over his lips as he says, “Nothing much to tell, is there.”

“I didn’t know what to say!”

“You never do, do you, Swan?”

(And this, _this_ , is the stuff that’s painful, the stuff that has fangs, the stuff that left scars.)

Emma’s silent. That’s unfair. And mean. And--

Accurate.

(She’s the one who’d stopped calling, last time. Stopped returning his calls. Stopping talking to him, ducked out when David asked about him.)

“Can’t let this be _real_ , is that it?”

(Yes. But also--no.)

“That’s why you stopped--” he pauses, swallows “--before, isn’t it? Never came to visit, never wanted to talk about it. Because then it would be real. Then you’d have to make _choices_.”

“What we had is the most real thing I’ve ever been part of in my _life_ ,” she snaps. “But we were kids. You left. I stayed.”

“I would have--”

“No!” Emma says. “No, you were right to go. I was right to stay. I didn’t want you to come back for me. It would have been ridiculous--you’d have always regretted it.”

(Regretted me, she doesn’t say.)

“That’s what you thought?”

“I was right, too--look at your life. Look at how hard you’ve worked.”

“We could have that that _together_. You could have--”

“I couldn’t,” Emma says, shaking her head. “I would have always regretted it. My life here, it’s _good_ , Killian; I was never meant to be the girl who changed all of her plans for a guy. That’s just not who I was. I would have fucked it up or left or waited for you to get tired of me and you _would_ have. We both had a lot of growing up to do.”

“Aye, look out for yourself and never get hurt, is that it?” He looks away; up at the ceiling, down at Westley, who barks appreciatively when Killian gives him a scratch behind the ears. He looks out the window on his river view and says, “For someone who didn’t know what to say, Swan, I’d say you articulated that pretty well. Too bad you couldn’t have said something years ago.”

“Killian, whatever happened--I’m tired of living in the past. I mean that.”

He looks up at her through his stupidly long eyelashes.

“Talking to you is the best part of my day.”

His jaw muscle softens. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.

“Yeah,” he says, “mine too.”

**\--**

Her call to Mary Margaret is frantic--her emotions, just, all over the map; she’s upset but she can’t articulate it beyond, “Mary Margaret, I fucked up.”

(Had she?)

(Isn’t this what she was afraid of? The blowup? The very thing she’d been trying to avoid all of those years ago--it’s not that she was _wrong,_ it’s that she handled it the wrong way back then.)

But this--it’s wrong. It feels _wrong_ in a way it didn’t when she was twenty-one.

“Don’t cry, baby.” Mary Margaret’s voice switches immediately to soothing like she’s already got a kid, never mind the one due in a few weeks. “Tell me what happened.”

\--

**Tuesday  
** **Mary Margaret [12.02 PM]  
** Call him.

He hasn’t called and it hurts.

“Talking to you is the best part of my day,” she’d said, and he agreed and--

Nothing.

\--

**Wednesday  
** **Mary Margaret [10.39 AM]  
** Did you call him?

She misses him.

It’s only been a few days.

Emma’s not afraid of confrontation; it’s her job, it’s her _life_. But with Killian, it’s different.

Because he’s always able to see the things she’s not saying.

And he’s always able to say the things she doesn’t want to hear, calling her out and saying what he meant.

She'd forgotten that he did that, that she could push him and expose the temper and the fire that he usually kept buried just as easily as he could read her and push her and set her aflame with his touch and his eyes and his--

\--

**Emma [11.16 AM]**  
So you’re really not going to say anything

 **David [11.20 AM]**  
You’re my sister. He’s my best friend.

 **David [11.21 AM]**  
I love you both dearly and I’m staying out of it.

 **Emma [11.22 AM]**  
Seriously?

 **David [11.25 AM]**  
What’s that thing you always say? From that movie you like? About death and true love.

 **Emma [11.27 AM]**  
True love?

 **Emma [11.27 AM]  
** Me and Killian?

 **Emma [11.28 AM]**  
I don’t think that means what you think it means.

 **David [11.29 AM]  
** Get your shit together, Em. Call him.

\--

Missing him now was just as scary as missing him had been then. It's scary to see him again, to remember the way it had been and the way she'd been. Sometimes she missed it more than she remembered it, the way he was, the way she'd felt with him, and the hurt feelings as the distance had started to feel even farther and the time apart even longer and the day she'd realized that he had a new life there and she had one here.

If she'd gone--or if he'd stayed--

But that was history.

\--

**Thursday (Morning)**

**Mary Margaret [8.47 AM]  
** Seriously why haven’t you called him yet

 **Emma [9.13 AM]  
** Seriously why did I even tell you

 **Mary Margaret [9.15 AM]  
** Because you wanted it to be real

 **Mary Margaret [9.16 AM]  
** He wants it too

**Thursday (Afternoon)**

**Ruby [3.17 PM]**  
CALL HIM

 **Ruby [3.18]  
** Stop moping and call him

 **Emma [3.22 PM]  
** I’m not moping

 **Ruby [3.25 PM]  
** You’re avoiding

_Ruby Lucas has sent you a Spotify link_

**Ruby [3.31 PM]**  
Ok well at least tell MM I tried

\--

The music is cranked up but not so loud that Emma doesn't hear the pounding on the door.

"Emma!" It's Mary Margaret, her sister-in-law. "Emma, open up!"

Emma turns the volume louder, but she can still hear Mary Margaret's exasperated sigh. "Emma," she says, "I have a key and I will use it."

Just because she can, she flips the volume switch on the speaker all the way up before she opens the door. "You know you shouldn't come in," Emma says in lieu of a greeting.

"I know." Mary Margaret has nothing but sympathy in her eyes. "How about, instead, you put on a pair of shoes and come for a walk with me? Turn off Ruby Lucas' breakup playlist and--" she spots the open bottle of red wine on the counter "--clear your head."

Ruby Lucas' tried-and-true formula of wine and _Jagged Little Pill_ deserves more than "breakup playlist" in its defense but Emma is worn down and a little bit tipsy and, in spite of everything, kind of happy to see her sister-in-law.

"Come on, Em," she says. "Walk with me."

\--

Just walking with Mary Margaret and feeling the fresh air around her makes Emma’s entire body start to sag at the comfort of it.

“I miss him, okay?” she says. “I didn’t realize, and I guess--”

“You never asked, you mean,” Mary Margaret says.

Emma glares. She's relieved to have said it but it doesn't mean she wants to go full-on catharsis with her sister-in-law in the middle of the street where they're walking. And the way Mary Margaret says it, like it's something easy, as though when you ask people things--the really hard things--you don't have anything to fear from their answer--

Emma sighs.

Mary Margaret just watches her, all motherly concern and friendly compassion rolled into one even with the home-sewn mask and its cheerful fabric obscuring her expression and Emma wishes they could hug.

"He never stopped loving you," Mary Margaret says, "just like you never stopped loving him. But I think this is a good thing."

"It's a good thing that I'm day-drunk and miserable?"

"It's a good thing that you're having this fight," she says. "And if you every want this to be something again, I think you need to finish it."

Emma’s silent.

“Maybe start by apologizing,” Mary Margaret says.

\--

 **Emma [9.23 PM]**  
I’m sorry I didn’t call

 **Emma [9.23 PM]**  
I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls

 **Emma [9.24 PM]**  
I’m really glad you called me

 **Killian [9.27 PM]**  
It’s alright, love.

\--

Emma's home and sober and on the couch with Buttercup and the music has been switched from Alanis to something softer and gentler, acoustic guitar and quiet vocals like the kind he used to--

As the phone rings, she’s seized with the possibility that he won’t answer. One, two, three, four--

On the fifth ring it stops, the screen _swooshing_ as the camera connects on his end.

She stares.

He smirks.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” he says, and she laughs. He’s soaking wet, his hair sticking up at all angles, and he is bare from her shoulders to where she can see part of his torso. She makes a show of looking him over, letting his eyes roam over him, and shrugs.

“Sure you’re not letting yourself go, Jones?”

His turn to laugh. “You tell me,” he says.

She smiles and feels herself relax as he puts the phone down and she is treated to the far less exciting view of his ceiling, but only for a minute before he reappears, brushing his fingers through his hair and pulling on the hem of his t-shirt. Emma waits for him to settle, waits for his eyes to focus just on her before she says, “I’m sorry.”

Killian watches her; watches her and waits.

She gestures, even though all he can see is the phone camera highlighting odd angles of her apartment. “You were right, and I was wrong.”

His lip quirks. Just a bit.

“Frame it, okay? Treasure this moment.”

“I will,” he says. His voice is gentle, reassuring.

She inhales. “I missed you the past few days.”

“And I you,” he says. “But I’ve been doing some thinking, Swan, and maybe we--”

Emma can feel the blood draining from her face and she sits down, her hand automatically reaching for Buttercup.

“No, no,” he says, his eyes widening. “Nothing like that. Merely--we need to talk to each other more. Be two adults who respect each other. I want us to fight for this, Emma, not shut down when things get hard, and if you don’t want anyone to know, I’ll--” his fingers are in his hair again “--I’ll be ok. It won’t hurt anyone. It might help us.”

“I want that too,” she says quickly, the words tripping over each other in her haste to push them out. “To fight for us, I mean.”

“Yeah?” God, she _loves_ it when he smiles like that.

“Yeah.” She squares her shoulders. “Choosing to see the best doesn’t mean ignoring everything else, right?”

He doesn’t know everything about her, the dark and messy things she’s accumulated in the years they’ve been apart. She doesn’t know about him, either--about him or his life or the things he’s done separate from their shared history. She wants to tell him her stories.

She wants to hear his.

He’s still smiling; Emma doesn’t ever want him to stop.

“Good,” he says.

\--

Your brother came to see me and that’s how I got Westley, did I ever tell you that?

After Milah left.

Milah, she--we weren’t good for each other, not really, but in so many ways we _were_. I loved her. She loved me. And neither of us wanted to care about the wreckage we left behind us because we were so swept up in it, even when it was hard, when it hurt, when it was terrible, when she was angry, when I was--

(Killian’s voice is low and soft, full of meaning, full of _emotion_ , disembodied over the phone line and whispering into her ear.)

But then she left.

And it gutted me. Nothing had hurt me so much in years, not since--

Not since you.

And I was a mess. I was drinking too much. I was avoiding everything and everyone and your brother showed up one day on a weekend I’d forgotten he was coming. Or maybe I hadn’t forgotten--maybe I was ignoring it, hoping he’d forget, because I couldn’t face him in the state I was in. He just showed up at my door and pounded until I let him in, Will and Robin right behind him, and Dave, he just shoved me toward the shower and stood there until he heard the water running; I’m honestly surprised he didn’t come in to check on me.

But then again, he’s a married man.

(Emma can hear the smirk and she sighs, a sound that is part laugh and part--something else.) (Something sad and wistful because she can picture the look on his face and it makes her want to smile even though her insides are turning somersaults and her heart is racing.)

(He needs to tell her this story.)

(She needs to listen.)

And Rob and Will, they’ve cleaned up the mess I’ve made--which Will is still ragging me for--and ordered food and they sat me down and watched me eat it and let me tell you, love, I was a right shit about it.

I’m sure you find that difficult to believe.

But they just ignored me, turned on the television and talked over me and sat there with me on my couch for hours until I kicked them out. Except for Dave.

Dave wouldn’t leave. Just sat there, watching me, saying nothing.

And the next day he takes me to the animal shelter and I tell him he’s absolutely mental, out of his head. I can’t take care of another life. I’m a mess. I’m broken.

But then there’s this dog.

I walk in, and there he is, just staring at me. And he’s got--you’ve seen him, Swan, he’s got big blue eyes and this black mask covering half of his face. He’s got a patch on his belly that looks like it’s in the shape of a heart and this dog barks at me and wags its tail.

And I turn to your brother and he’s just looking at me and then he says, ‘Killian, you have to get your shit together.’

The dog’s watching us, still wagging its tail, and Dave says, ‘Get your shit together and call Emma.’

(Emma’s intake of breath is, she’s sure, quite audible over the phone.)

(Westley grunts in the background.)

I’m not going to lie to you, love, I got angry then. Almost yelled in the middle of the shelter. ‘I don’t know what you’re going on about,’ I said. ‘Your sister left a long time ago. This has nothing to do with her.’

Your brother, he gets so self-righteous when he’s on his high horse and he looks at me and he says, ‘Maybe not. But what’s that line from that movie you always used to watch with her? Something about death and true love.’

(Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.)

I tried to tell him he was wrong, that this was about Milah, but--anyway. I fill out the paperwork. I bring the dog home and I can’t look at him and not think of you, and that movie. We go for walks and I get some fresh air and exercise and I clear my head and I get my shit together, because your brother’s a stubborn ass but he’s also usually right about that kind of thing.

But you already know how the story ends, don’t you?

(She does.)

(But she wants him to tell her.)

And then everything happens. The world changed. It’s work from home and much shorter walks for Westley and every day he just stares at me through his mask and I can’t stop thinking about you, Emma. And all of this time, all of this distance between us, it can’t stop true love. It can only delay it for a while.

(She’ll never doubt it again.)

\--

That’s the first night they leave the phone line open and when she wakes up and it’s quiet and there’s a split second where she wants to panic until--

She hears his breathing.

The comforting rhythm of his inhalations and exhalations, and a snore that must be Westley.

Emma re-arranges her pillow, pulls her blanket up to her chin, and turns on her side to face the phone. She feels a sense of relief. It’s fine.

It’s--better than fine.

It’s hope.

\--

Killian used to sing in the car when they drove, softly, under his breath and always in tune. Emma remembers the first time she noticed it, really _noticed_ \--she remembers the way her hand slid against the stickshift and her pinky gently, almost accidentally, brushed against his thumb; she remembers the spark that she felt and the shiver that went through her as he turned and softly smiled, a mixture of surprise and awe coloring his features.

They were going to the beach, her and Killian and David and Ruby and Graham, a post-graduation retreat to Graham’s family place. His aunt or something, not that it mattered, because for a few precious days it was all _theirs_. The car was packed with blankets and pillows and towels and Frisbees, Killian’s guitar and Graham’s bass.

She remembers how blue the sky was and how endless it seemed and the rocks along the shoreline as they walked and the distance between her and Killian as it became inexorably, inevitably nonexistent.

He whispered poetry into her ear.

Their friends were watching, laughing, but Emma didn’t care--all that mattered was the easy way their legs tangled up as they all sat on the blankets and the way his eyes shone over the fire as he and Graham played long into the night. She remembers the way his hoodie smelled when she wrapped it around herself, like a mixture of soap and spice and _him_ ; the way his fingers felt when she leaned up against his legs and he pulled at the ends of her hair, a soothing touch that lulled her until she was woken up by the feeling of being lifted and carried back to her bed.

Emma’s still not sure if she dreamt the way he kissed her forehead, or if it was real.

They watched the meteors, sprawled out on beach chairs--only Emma was on top of him, her back to his front. She could feel him breathing underneath her and the way his exhalations tickled her ear and her entire body vibrated when he spoke but all that mattered was the delicate touch of his fingers, along her arm and skirting the hem of her t-shirt.

That night she didn’t need to be carried to bed; instead she pulled him along behind her and lay down next to him. Emma doesn’t remember if they saw any meteors but she does remember the stars behind her eyes when she closed them and leaned in and kissed him.

\--

_**It could have gone like this:**  
_ It’s dinnertime on Tuesday when Killian says, “Swan, I’m leaving.”

It’s take-away sushi, nothing special, but her mouth is full and her body tightens at the words she’s been half expecting for years. Emma swallows, puts her chopsticks down.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

He exhales and his blue eyes watch her and now he is the one who is waiting. Or maybe he’s been waiting all of this time, too.

Maybe this is what they call inevitable.

“Scarlet phoned again,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

Scarlet has been phoning at least twice a year since Killian had turned down a job with him in Oregon. _For her_. He turned down a great career. _For her._

And not a day has gone by since then when Emma didn’t think about that.

Her life was here. Her family was here.

And Killian had stayed.

“I just--”

“Killian--”

“You know I’ve never once regretted staying here.”

“I never asked you to stay.”

A pause.

“No,” he says. “You never did. And you’re not going to now, either. Are you, love?”

She’s not. She _can’t_. It’s just all of these years piled up around her, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for exactly this.

Maybe they’d been too young.

Maybe they’d believed too much in first love.

Maybe they never could have made it work, or maybe Emma just wouldn’t let them.

“You know I would go to the ends of the world for you,” he says, and it’s broken and half-whispered, an echo of what he had said to her the day that he had stayed.

“I know,” she says.

“You know,” he echoes. “You know, Emma, but you’ve never believed it.”

Maybe he’d believed too much, and Emma hadn’t believed enough.

\--

_**It should have gone like this:**  
_ It’s Tuesday morning and Emma’s laughing with Ruby at the counter in the diner when the bell over the door rings. She’s not even thinking about it as she half turns, glancing out of the corner of her eye--

\--and it’s like all of the oxygen has been pulled out of her body.

“Oh my god!” Ruby exclaims, throwing her towel on the floor and jumping the counter in spite of her spindled red heels and throwing herself at him. “I had no idea you were back in town!” She hit him in the shoulder, playfully. “All these years, and you’ve never come back to see old friends?”

He laughs. It’s a great sound, even if it’s a little nervous and he hasn’t made eye contact yet even though Emma knows he knows she’s there. Knows it because her body reacted to his presence and she can tell, just by looking at him and his posture and the way that he’s blushing, playing with the hair on the back of his neck (soft, like the skin there, her favorite place to put her fingers). He knows.

Slowly, Emma turns the rest of the way to face him. He’s--just--

If she’s ever had any doubts that the years have been kind to Killian Jones--and she hasn’t, she’s seen pictures--they are immediately dispelled because his eyes still crinkle when he smiles, the way he is smiling right now. At her. The smile splits his face and he says, simply, “Hello, beautiful.”

She smiles back and it’s surprisingly easy, like a missing puzzle piece sliding into place.

“Hi,” she says--shakes her head, giggles, stands up and walks toward him--and then says it again. “Hi.”

She wraps her arms around him, suddenly surrounded by the familiar scent of his soap and his jacket like she hasn’t been since the day he’d left and they’d stopped being _them_.

“You know I’d go to the ends of the world for you,” he’d said.

“I know,” she’d said. “But this time, you have to go for _you_.”

It had hurt.

It had almost broken her.

But she knew, in her heart, it was the right thing to do. She’d heard about it from David, how great things were for him at his job, at his career, she’d heard the second-hand stories about his friends and the life he’d built for himself three thousand, one hundred and ninety-one miles away from her.

It was fine.

She’d built a life, too. A happy one. Job, career, love, heartbreak, friends, a _home_. Her brother, her sister-in-law, her nephew. No regrets.

But seeing him, after all of this time, in this place--it feels, somehow, inevitable, like it was meant to happen, like maybe they were just waiting for it to be the right time.

“I missed you,” she says, and she means it.

“Aye, love,” he says. “Me too.”

There’s a future here, she realizes, watching him sit down on the stool next to where she’d been sitting, watching Ruby pour him a cup of coffee as though he’d never left. There’s a future here, and it’s a good one.

\--

_**But it actually happened like this**_.  
It’s almost midnight on a Tuesday when there’s a knock at the door and Buttercup jumps.

So does Emma.

She’s been pacing around her apartment for hours--for days--leaving it even less often than usual, begging Mary Margaret or Ruby or David for groceries. She didn’t want to jinx it but she _had_ to tell them and David, just, he was so excited his smile hurt to look at.

“I’m proud of you, Em,” he said, not even complaining about the sheer quantity of Pop Tarts he’d been asked to buy.

And now-- _now_ \--there’s a knock at the door.

At midnight.

And it’s him.

(Oh, god, it’s _him_.)

She flings the door open and all she can do is stare, dumbstruck. He’s equally still, his huge grin lighting up the entire goddamn hallway and his stupid-handsome face, his eyes wide and she can hear the way he inhales and then.

His voice. In person.

“Hello, beautiful.”

That’s all he says.

She can’t even answer him.

Behind him, Westley barks and then _lunges_ , straight at her, his paws on her thighs and his head in her hands as he sniffles and snorts and his tail wags all over the place. Even though it’s most likely sheer joy at freedom from the car it’s hard not to take it as a sign and she laughs and Killian laughs and Buttercup hisses and swats and it sets them off again.

She still hasn’t let him in and he’s noticed, she can tell by the way his eyes are doing the thing where they twinkle as he laughs at her but keeps it all inside, exhaling a snort from his nostrils.

So she--very maturely--sticks her tongue out at him and steps aside but not far enough aside that their shoulders don’t brush as he has to push his way past her.

His arm wraps around her waist before she can even process it.

Her arms are around his neck before she can even blink, her fingers trailing the spot on the back and the little bit of hair..

They’re inches apart.

(She hasn’t seen another human in person in over a week, all for this moment and it’s just--it’s everything.)

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he says, before his arms tighten around her waist and she’s off the ground, lifted up against him like they hadn’t been close enough already. She giggles. God, she’s _giggling_.

He smells amazing. How does he smell amazing? He’s been driving for days, stopping barely long enough to sleep, camping along the way with a tent and kit he borrowed from Robin who is, apparently, mad about camping and drags them out on male-bonding trips at the drop of a hat.

“I’d go to the end of the world for you,” he said. “What’s a few thousand miles compared to that?”

She asked him about work and he waved it off like it was nothing, “It’s summer vacation,” he said. “Can’t argue with that, can you?”

(She could. She just didn’t want to.)

His voice had gotten serious when he said, “Let me be the one who changes my plans for you. I’ll come back to Maine and we’ll--” his breath caught, and so had hers “--we’ll go somewhere together, just for a few days. Have a little fun. Learn how to be around each other again.”

(His soap is the same, sharp and citrus with something herbal underneath.)

“Woof.”

They pull themselves apart.

“I should--” he says.

“Yeah,” she says, pointing at the kitchen and the bowl she’d set aside for the dog. She waves her hand at the couch and the pile of sheets there. “I should--”

“Yeah,” he says, and winks. “I’d love to use the shower, if I may.”

Emma nods and does not picture him in the shower.

She doesn’t.

She makes up the couch. She busies herself in the kitchen, pulling out glasses and a bottle of rum.

(She does not picture him in the shower.)

The door to the bedroom opens and Emma can hear him laugh, so she turns. He’s walking out of the bedroom in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, rubbing his hair with a towel and--

The dog is on the couch.

And her goddamn traitorous cat.

Westley is spread out, stretched from tip to toe with Buttercup curled into a ball against his belly, and maybe _this_ is what they call inevitable.

Killian scratches the back of his neck but his eyes are still doing the twinkle thing; Emma is deadly serious as she takes the towel from him and grabs his hand, interlocking her fingers as she leads them back into her room--rum and dog and cat and _everything_ , for this brief moment, forgotten.

But the moment breaks and uncertainty grips her as they cross the threshold and he squeezes her hand like he _knows_ , because he knows her.

“How about this,” he says, his voice gentle and understanding. “Clothes on, yeah? Adults. That’s enough to deal with for one night.”

“Yeah?” she asks.

“I’m nervous, too,” he says, his eyes very blue and suddenly not twinkling at all. “Let’s just be here in the moment, together. Here and now. We have all the time in the world.”

That’s when she kisses him, chastely on the corners of his mouth and her heart is pounding so loud she’s sure he can hear it as they lie down next to each other on the bed. There’s nothing but the blood rushing in her ears as _he_ kisses _her_ , softly.

(So softly.)

The tip of his tongue against her lips and nothing else; butterfly kisses along her cheekbones before he rests his forehead against hers. His hand is ghosting along the hem of her t-shirt, his thumb lightly stroking the skin there.

They sit, quietly--together in the silence that could be awkward but isn’t.

(Here and now.)

(All the time in the world.)

Emma closes her eyes and listens to his breathing.

(Constant, rhythmic, soothing.)

\--

They drive to Acadia in the morning, the windows down, the radio quiet, just loud enough for Killian to sing along with after they’d woken up and walked the dog and Killian looked at her and said, “What do you say we set sail?”

Emma’s barefoot in the car and wrapped up in his hoodie like she’s a kid again except that now she knows how precious this feeling is. There’s coffee from Granny’s in the cupholder and his Thermos full of tea right next to it.

There’s Sand Beach, and Keats.

> _O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,  
> _ _Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;  
> _ _O ye! whose ears are dinn’d with uproar rude,  
> _ _Or fed too much with cloying melody, –  
> _ _Sit ye near some old cavern’s mouth, and brood  
> _ _Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!_

He makes her grilled cheese on their campfire and they watch the flames while he plays with her hair, running his fingers through it. He’s in a beach chair and she’s on top of him, her back to his front, his other hand at her waist, rubbing small circles on her stomach. Westley’s next to her, in easy reach for when he wants to be petted.

There’s so much to say and they said almost none of it in the bright light of day with the sky blue and endless and the rocks beneath their feet. Maybe there’s nothing left to say, because it’s so obvious and so right and they’re--she’s--not going to fuck it up this time by handling it badly when it’s real, when it’s like this and there’s a _future_ , a good one.

But Emma knows it needs to be said and she needs to say it so she takes a deep breath and asks, “Are you really going to stay?”

His voice hums in her ear. “This is our chance at a future, love. A happy ending. I damn well intend to take it.”

The fire pops and she shifts against him.

His voice, low and hopeful. “Will you?”

When she turns to kiss him, there’s nothing chaste about it. There’s just her lips against his and his fingers in her hair and her whisper of “yes.”

It doesn’t feel like a happy ending.

(It feels like a happy beginning.)

-30-


End file.
